Sean said:

>
>This is straying quite a bit OT as I am wont to do, but here goes:
>
>It really seems to me that for many (at least) low power circuits, there is
>a real trend toward more and more integration and less and less board-level
>electronics, for obvious reasons. IF and WHEN do most of you feel that most
>devices will consist of just one or more ASICs connected together with
>almost no external components at all? Of course, I suppose that another
>possibility may be that FPGAs and reconfigurable analog chips (consisting
>of op-amp and switched cap filter arrays, or ADCs/DACs and a DSP processor)
>may perform this function, instead of complete ASICs.
>
>This has been a concern of mine for some time because I am fearful that
>hobbists may eventually be left out of the loop if manufacturers go totally
>ASIC for small-signal and digital applications and the production process
>for ASICs is still too expensive for hobbists to get involved in.
>
>Are my fears unfounded? I hope so.
>

If I understand your point correctly, I think they are. IMO ASICs aren't
going to take over the world, or even consumer applications. Application
flexibility always has value, ESPECIALLY at high levels of integration.
Yesterday someone on this list noted that their old app notes for a
quadrature encoder called for the use of a hardware debouncer chip; they
had never even heard of it. That approach is dinosaur technology now, along
with half of your logic handbook's discrete function logic chips. Largely
displaced by fifty-cent microcontrollers, which are proliferating at least
as fast as ASICs.

Low-cost controllers, programmers and development systems are the
designer's best friend.

Reg Neale